National Movement press conference attended by Rafał Mekler and Marek Szewczyk, October 1, 2024.
Rafał Mekler:
I came to you present from Lublin due to the fact that I wanted to present the situation from my city.
Well, in Lublin 1 of the dormitories of 1 of the universities since the outbreak of the war has been inhabited by Ukrainians. The building admin decided he wanted to rebuild the building, however. Unfortunately, this met with the opposition of its inhabitants, the Ukrainian citizens, who were accommodated there during the war.
It is not that these people have been deprived of any another choice. The city offered them locations in the city, besides offered them out of town. A rent surcharge was besides offered. Unfortunately, the people from the dorm inactive don't want to decision out.
I just wanted to draw attention to an crucial issue. It's been over 2 years since the war started. Let us callback the situation of Poles who went to the West in times of “Solidarity”. 2 years was a time erstwhile they spent in a transitional camp without the chance to work, without the anticipation to leave practically this camp without passes. Here these people had 2 years of complete self-reliance.
In Poland, about 200 1000 fresh apartments are donated annually. Not without impact on the housing market, on the housing marketplace in the student city, specified as Lublin, was the arrival of all those people whose first request was to get a roof over their head. present we can safely say that this dormitory could besides be a place of residence for Polish students, where in the current situation they had to usage the external market, they had to look for apartments on their own. This was an increased cost due to the fact that the force on the marketplace due to the fact that more people were willing than housing, the force on the marketplace was increased.
The real costs incurred by Polish society are expressed in the higher costs of keeping the child, which he studies outside of his residence, in specified Lublin.
Our ancestors fought to make us in this country host, to make us in Poland feel like at home, to be not second-class citizens in Poland, to feel like at home in Poland, due to the fact that this is our place to live. There cannot be specified a situation that dormitories, made available for rather a long time, due to the fact that 2 years is truly a very long time to become independent – so that these dormitories proceed to occupy foreigners. This is simply a place for Polish students, due to the fact that a Polish student is individual who will develop, who will work for our well-being, who will build the strength of Poland in the future. There's no consent. We will fight to make dormitories a place where Polish students can live, due to the fact that that's why they were created! That's what this place was made to make it possible to live cheap, close to college.
Marek Szewczyk:
– After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, the Polish people, as well as the Polish state, showed a large commitment to aid civilians, victims of the war, besides to those who simply fled Ukraine. Now it turns out, after these 2 years over, almost 3 years of conflict, there is no end to it. aid is at a immense level all the time.
But you can see that any of those who have come to us are becoming demanding. To them it is inactive little, they are only due, they must be given due to the fact that they are the victims. Which part of Ukraine they came from, either from the east or the west. Whether from the east covered by armed conflict or from the west, which is comparatively calm, they must be given. They've taken a dorm, they can live there, over 250 people from Ukraine.
And it's not like someone's abruptly trying to throw them out of that dormitory to throw them out on the street. No, they got 2 offers of help. On the 1 hand, you can rent something on the market, if you want to live in Lublin, on the real property marketplace you can rent it by providing rent subsidies for six months.
I think that many Poles would like to go to something like this to have these subsidies for six months to rent. On the another hand, you besides get good surviving conditions, only outside the agglomeration, outside Lublin, in the suburban village. But the Ukrainians say they don't want it due to the fact that they're comfortable there.
So there's nothing we can do as a state? Is this what the Polish state looks like? UMCS, which is my alma mater, wants to renovate this dormitory due to the fact that it was devastated by Ukrainian tenants due to the fact that there were unobserved rules for utilizing this dormitory at which the university agreed to make available.
The city offers replacements and Ukrainians do not want to decision out due to the fact that the dormitories in Lublin are in a very good location, very close to the city center, where everything is practically there – so they are simply comfortable and this claim attitude is getting wider. And ladies and gentlemen, in Lublin this is not a fresh problem, it is not a problem that came after the Russian Federation's aggression on Ukraine, but it is simply a problem that has already been there since 2014 erstwhile I was inactive studying.
Some lecturers looked favorably at students from Ukraine, letting them pass from year to year due to the fact that they were not called into the Ukrainian army. So that they do not gotta fight in Donbasa with those, as we remember then, green people who occupied part of Ukraine in 2014.
And this claim attitude keeps increasing. At this level, specified an ordinary, human, downstairs, but besides as regards state authorities, erstwhile president Zelenski demands expanding support. He would like our aviation, he would like our rocket defense, he would like to affect all Polish armed forces and the full Polish society in this war, in war straight with Russia, only in their interests.
But what do we get in return? In return, we don't even have the gratitude. Hundreds of thousands of OUN-UPA Ukrainian victims all the time lie in nameless pits. The bones flow to the top in artificial water reservoirs. All the time the victims cry for truth, for memory, and the Ukrainian state constantly rejects this fact and allows the exhumation of Wehrmacht soldiers – there is no problem there then, there is no war – but already erstwhile it comes to Polish exhumations, Poles, then of course it is not the time, not the time that we should not request it now. When?
It is always the incorrect time for subsequent Polish governments. There will never be a appropriate time for the Ukrainian government, due to the fact that they must admit that they have committed a terrible crime, a terrible genocide. They must deny their full historical policy, built on the CNS cult, on the Bandera cult. So they gotta face it. If they truly want Polish-Ukrainian cooperation, if they want help, they should besides reciprocate and they should besides admit to themselves, before history, that specified a crime took place and that it was not settled or even commemorated in any way.
I frequently mention to the past of students erstwhile I spoke to students from Ukraine. And I asked them, "Girls, do you know anything like Volyn massacre?" Yeah, we know. Do you know anything about the SS Galizien that your games were in the Wehrmacht? They didn't know that anymore. But to my question, why did they commit this terrible crime, which is explained to them by their parents, their grandparents – it was a short “because it was right”. due to the fact that it was the right thing to do.
That's their mentality. That's the way it was then, and who knows if they don't think it was right again, due to the fact that it's in the business, it won't happen again. Therefore, we must fight hard, assertively for the Polish national interest and above all focus on Poles, on Poland, and above all take care of the Polish interest first, not the interests of Ukraine, Germany or any another countries.
